Politics Between the 45-Yard Lines

Most of American politics – and much of the discussion of it – are played
between the 45-yard lines. Translation: The teams are opposed to each other,
but the distance between their viewpoints is really quite small. In part, this
is because both parties in a two-party system face competitive pressures to
produce what the median voter wants. But that’s only part of the story. Because
the median voter doesn’t typically pay attention to many of the issues, the
politicians often don’t need to pay attention to what the median voter wants.
What, then, do they pay attention to? It’s often to the wishes of the special
interests. In the area of foreign policy, these special interests include,
of course, the major defense contractors. But they also include the foreign
policy establishment: the people who make their living analyzing, discussing,
and writing about foreign policy. And the differences among these people are
relatively minor. A large percentage of the U.S. foreign policy establishment,
for example, thinks that the U.S. government should have a large role in deciding
matters almost anywhere in the world, no matter what people in other parts
of the world think or want.

I saw this played out in an event at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) on
June 8 of this year. The Panetta
Institute, named after Leon Panetta, currently the director of the CIA, had
invited Frank Sesno,
John Abizaid, and David
Ignatius to speak at one of its regular events on a Monday evening. That
afternoon, they did their show at NPS. Sesno made his career as a reporter
for CNN; Abizaid, a retired U.S. Army general, succeeded Tommy Franks as commander
of the U.S. Central Command; and Ignatius is a columnist with the Washington
Post. I attended the afternoon talk and watched the evening talk on local
television. Whereas I normally am an active participant at such events, the
format did not lend itself to that. No one other than Sesno, who acted as moderator,
got to ask questions directly; members of the audience had to write their questions
out, and a committee of local reporters and editorial writers screened the
questions. The good news is that they didn’t just keep the softball questions;
the median question from the audience was tougher than those that Sesno asked.
What follows are some of the highlights.

Abizaid led by identifying four U.S. strategic concerns:

The rise of radical Sunnis.

The rise of Shia Islamic extremism.

Israel and Palestine.

“Perhaps most important, how do we diminish our delicate problem with oil
in the Middle East, our dependence on Middle East oil?”

Do you notice something interesting? The first three issues wouldn’t be of
concern if the U.S. government simply kept its hands off that part of the world.
And the fourth one, as I have pointed
out elsewhere, is bogus: To simplify a much longer argument, no matter
who owns the oil, the owner will want to sell it to us.

Abizaid hastened to say, “We don’t want to control the Middle East, but we
want to shape the outcome.” How do you “shape the outcome” without exercising
control? Blank out (i.e., no answer), as the late Ayn Rand would have said.
The presence of about 200,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East, a presence that
he once headed, belies Abizaid’s statement. Did Sesno challenge him? No. Ignatius?
No.

At various points throughout the hour and a half, Sesno, Abizaid, and Ignatius
all discussed how best to “shape” the situation in the Middle East. Not one
of the three questioned whether it needed to be shaped.

At least, though, there were 10 yards of difference between their views.
The differences showed up in the way Ignatius and Abizaid saw the so-called
Global War on Terror. Sesno asked, “Is there a global war on terror?”

Ignatius: “Terrorism is a tactic. It’s used by the Tamil Tigers, etc. The
war on terror is never-ending. We’re in danger of drawing a circle so widely
that we get in fights we don’t need to.”

Abizaid: “They [the soldiers] are fighting a war with over 200,000 troops.
It’s a war. I won’t say it’s not a war. We are doing our troops a disservice
not to call it a war and not to define the scope.”

But Abizaid had avoided responding to Ignatius’s point that you can’t conduct
war against a tactic. So Ignatius tried again: “If we describe a never-ending
conflict, you folks [looking at the audience of largely U.S. military officers]
are never going to get home. We owe the people serving a precise definition
of what they’re fighting.”

The first question by an audience member was a hardball question, but, again,
it fell within the 45-yard lines. The question to Abizaid, which Sesno read
aloud, was, “On your watch, your strategy failed. Why?” Abizaid replied, “The
strategy implemented on my watch hasn’t failed yet.” Then he added, “You can’t
do it just by putting one-tenth of 1 percent of your people on the front line.”
Was he suggesting a much larger military force? He didn’t say.

At one point, in response to Abizaid’s and Ignatius’s comments about Israel,
Sesno asked, “What do we do if Iran persists in getting a nuclear weapon?”

Abizaid replied, “If we go to war with Iran, we should go to war with Iran.
That means destruction of their nuclear capability, their navy, their air force.
It doesn’t have to mean regime change. I think most people understand that,
including the Iranians.”

To his credit, Sesno followed up on this. He listed countries that have nuclear
weapons and then asked, “Can we live with a nuclear Iran?”

Ignatius answered, “Iran is a country that tries to destabilize other countries.
The problem is, as Henry Kissinger said, Iran is a cause and not a nation.”

So, implicit in Ignatius’s opinion was the idea that if a government of country
X destabilizes country Y, the government of X can’t be allowed to have nuclear
weapons. But the Soviets often tried to destabilize other countries and yet
never used nuclear weapons on us, or on anyone else for that matter.

Interestingly, though, Abizaid seemed to leave open the idea of not making
war on Iran simply for having, as distinct from using, nuclear weapons, saying,
“We’re going to have to dust off the deterrence notebook. Is there a way to
have a deterrence effect against an organization that might achieve nuclear
capability? There should be no question about what happens to Iran if Iran
uses a nuclear weapon.”

One question from the audience was about how the travesty at Abu Ghraib happened.
Abizaid fielded it: “The only time I ever thought about resignation because
I was dissatisfied with my own personal performance, it was over Abu Ghraib.”

Sesno followed up: “At what point, either in protest or accountability, does
a senior officer resign?”

Abizaid answered, “When given an order that’s immoral or illegal, you have
no choice but to resign.” (Emphasis his.)

Here I need to comment. I think a reporter worth his salt would have asked
the obvious question: “Given that you never resigned, that means you must never
have been given an immoral or illegal order. Is that true?” Yet Sesno didn’t
ask that. The next day in class, when I pointed this out to my students, a
student of mine, an Army officer who had been stationed in Iraq, pointed out
something else: Abizaid hadn’t, in fact, answered the question Sesno had
asked. He didn’t answer at what point a senior officer should resign in protest
or accountability. All he gave was the extreme: resignation in response to
an illegal or immoral order.

Ignatius, though, had a different response from that of my Army student or
me. He said, “Wow! That’s leadership.” Then Sesno fell in line, saying, “I
applaud you, General, for that.” Much of the audience of military officers
broke into applause.

One of Sesno’s last questions was the following: “John, I’m the president.
I bring you to the Oval Office. And I ask you, ‘What do I need to worry about
most?'”

Abizaid answered, “The most important thing we need to worry about is losing
confidence in ourselves. You need to tell people that we can get the job done.
We’ll do it because we have things that are worth fighting for.”

Many in the audience broke into applause. They were presumably more forgiving
of evasion than an actual U.S. president would be.

Sesno asked both Ignatius and Abizaid to make some final remarks. Ignatius
said, “It’s an honor to address an audience like this. I admire you for what
you’ve done. It’s a pleasure to be on the stage with John Abizaid. He’s thoughtful,
committed, fun to be with. Hats off, General.”

Abizaid said to the audience, “I want to say two things. First, thank you
for your service. I would urge you to stay with the team. Second, you need
to connect with our people. You need to talk to your fellow citizens about
what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what you think about it. My impression
is that they [American citizens] want to be part of it.”

The next day in class, a number of my students commented that they had seen
me furiously taking notes. (I took 14 pages.) They wanted to discuss the event.
One student focused on Abizaid’s final comments, saying, “How can I talk to
my fellow citizens about what I’m doing and what our goals are over there when
no one in the military has told me what we’re doing or what our goals are?”

Some other students, all U.S. military officers, nodded in agreement. I would
love to know Abizaid’s answer.